Inside The Bills

While Bills GM Doug Whaley was very happy to land free agent Corey Graham, the Baltimore Ravens were far from thrilled to have lost him. Ravens head coach John Harbaugh wasn’t shy in expressing his disappointment.

In an interview with the John Murphy Show at the annual league meetings in Orlando this week, Harbaugh was open and honest about losing Graham to Buffalo.

“He was hugely valuable to us and we were very disappointed to lose him,” said Harbaugh. “In the end I think we couldn’t really compete with Buffalo’s offer and the fact that he was going back home. That means a lot to Corey and his family, going back to Buffalo. But he’s a really good football player. They paid him accordingly, and that’s rightly so.

“He’s a great special teams player, but like we said before, sometimes these guys are great special teams players and they get labeled. People assume they aren’t really good defensive players, either. He had an opportunity with us to demonstrate the kind of corner he is and did that.”

Baltimore RB Ray Rice (hip) practiced again on Friday, but has been limited all week. Here’s what Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said following Ravens practice on Rice’s availability Sunday.

“We stand by the fact that we’re hoping [Rice will] get there,” said Harbaugh. “He’s got a better chance than he had last week. He has practiced, to an extent, throughout the course of the week, and we’ll know on Sunday. We’ve got our fingers crossed.”

BaltimoreRavens.com tweeted the following from Rice after Friday’s practice.

RB Ray Rice said that barring no setbacks there’s a chance he’ll be able to play Sunday.

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh is all too aware of Buffalo’s injury situation at cornerback and safety. But as is usually the case the Baltimore sideline boss was complimentary of the Bills secondary.

“They’ve got a lot of depth there,” said Harbaugh. “They’ve done a nice job of building depth in there. They have a lot of DBs on the roster, and they’ve played a lot of those guys. So, that’s impressive. We’ve been down that road ourselves, so we
understand the injury part of it. We had no healthy scratches out of the seven guys last week, so we’ve been battling injuries as well. I think every team faces that.”

As Bills head coach Doug Marrone said last week, no team feels sorry for any other because they’re usually dealing with injuries of their own. Baltimore was without RB Ray Rice, WR Jacoby Jones and DT Chris Canty last week among others.

Ravens RB Ray Rice missed last week’s game for Baltimore with a hip flexor injury. He’s still working his way back to full health and Baltimore coach John Harbaugh considers Rice’s odds a bit better for Sunday’s game in Buffalo.

“I don’t know about good, or great or whatever, but he was close this (past) week, to a degree,” said Harbaugh of Rice. “So was DT Chris [Canty]. With those muscle things, you never know for sure, but they were in the ballpark this week, and we think that will put them really in the ballpark coming up.”

Baltimore, much like the Bills last week, found running the ball difficult against Houston’s strong run front, which often brought a safety into the box. Here’s how the Ravens approach eight man fronts.

“We’ve played some very good fronts; I don’t want to minimize the fact that we’ve had to block some good people,” said Harbaugh. “A lot of times when you watch the tape, there is really good blocking going on out there. Sometimes, against a really good front where they’ve got seven guys that can make plays … One guy here, one miss there, one bad target in another place, each time that’s what holds you back.

“Our run game is not where it needs to be. We’re going to go to work on that – we have been working on it. We’ll continue to do so, and we need to make that important. One thing we’ve seen that, philosophically, we’re going to stick with it. It’s something that we think is important. We’re going to be able to run the ball here; it is a part of our DNA, and it is part of who we are as a football team. It’s going to be important, and we have the people to do it. The run game is something that has to happen for us.”

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh was asked specifically about Terrell Owens just hours before the Bills announced that he would not be extended a contract offer and become a free agent. Despite the signing of Donte Stallworth and the desire to re-sign 36-year old WR Derrick Mason, Harbaugh sounds interested in Owens.

“I’ve always said I’ve got a lot of respect for T.O. and I know Ozzie does too,” said Harbaugh. “He had a good year last year, we watched him on tape and he was very effective. We’re interested in T.O. We’re interested in all the guys that can make our team better.”

Harbaugh in returning from a goodwill trip to Iraq for U.S. troops ran into Owens in the airport.

“We did say hi and kind of rekindled the relationship,” said Harbaugh. “I think he’s a good guy and a good player.”

Harbaugh was the special teams coach in Philadelphia when Owens was with the Eagles and had Owens on his hands teams.

“He was respectful to the coaches and worked hard and I think everybody had a pretty good relationship with him,” Harbaugh said.